Ossia is a fascinating company and technology. What Ossia is selling is a wireless power solution that, unlike inductive wireless technology currently used for devices and electric vehicles, can transmit data over distances of up to eight meters (about 26 feet). This is about 20 feet more than the typical limits of inductive technology.
Ossia’s wireless solution can’t handle the amount of power that inductive charging can handle, at least not yet, and it doesn’t have the same data capacity as Wi-Fi, but it has enough power to keep larger devices charged at mostly when they don’t work. .
Russia is currently rolling out this technology, with early products ranging from use in grocery stores (small wirelessly powered price and static information displays), automobiles (switches, sensors, and some low-power devices), trackers (people/pets), and nanny cameras (which will use Wi-Fi for the data link).
This week I met with Ossia to learn about the potential of this technology. Let’s talk about the revolution this could cause this week.
Car wireless power
I’ve worked on cars my whole life, and they’ve gone from simple to incredibly complex. They typically have multiple wired data networks and a power network, all running on wires that, if not installed properly, can short out or break, causing a nightmare for the mechanic to figure out what the problem may be in the first place. intermittent – ​​located.
If you could take most of the low-power devices (switches, lights, seat sensors, parking sensors, brake sensors, etc.) and connect them to a control interface and wireless data sending capabilities, you could save a lot of labor costs. The cost of assembling and repairing a car. In fact, I expect that in most cases you will simply need to remove the broken module, replace it, and then authenticate it to the system.
One of the most annoying things about modern cars is the TPMS sensors that monitor tire pressure. They use little power, but over time they run out of charge, causing you to get a low pressure warning and force you to make an expensive trip to the store to install new sensors, which often cost over $75 each and you’ll need at least four of them. . their. Thanks to Ossia technology, tire sensors almost never run out of charge over the life of the vehicle.
Another area where the problem has arisen is with removable seats in vans or SUVs that are equipped with occupancy sensors. If these sensors were wireless, you’d just have to pull out the seats. Right now, you’ll also have to unplug them, and if you forget, you’ll either break the wires and damage the system, or you’ll forget to plug them back in, causing the system to incorrectly report the appropriate occupancy level (which could be problematic if you have a small child, which came unfastened before the accident).
Also read: The latest 5G advancements include satellite support, P2P connectivity, and long battery life.
Powering home devices
In home environments, this technology will extend the life of remote control batteries indefinitely and keep your pet’s tracker charged in case he or she leaves the house. Right now, if you have this tracker on the charger or the battery is dead, you’ll be out of luck if your pet runs away when someone forgets to close the door, jumps a fence, or simply sneaks away.
This also works great with Tile-like devices that are used to track things inside your home, like your keys or phone, which again, if the Tile’s battery died when you misplaced an item, good luck. Ossian technology would have prevented this dilemma.
Keyboards and other important controls won’t run out of battery at inopportune times. Dare we dream of smoke and carbon monoxide detectors that don’t run out of batteries in the middle of the night?
Finally, and this is personally annoying, you can use it to power cordless shades or curtains, ensuring that both the switch and the shade or shade stay charged, avoiding the need to replace batteries or hire an electrician to hook them up. . dominate. (My exterior blinds are wired but use wireless switches, but my interior blinds are battery powered at both ends and are very difficult to change.)
Industrial and healthcare use
The most interesting application may be in the enterprise, where Ossia’s wireless power can be used for occupancy sensors to reduce energy bills, battery powered charging stations, electronic locks (using a capacitor for locking and unlocking, which also works in cars as well ), for switches (you can eliminate the wiring between switches and lights and set them up logically without wiring them together), and to keep things like cell phones, headsets, wireless keyboards and mice endlessly charged.
Factory sensors and control systems, IoT devices, HVAC control systems, and a host of other low-power devices that currently consume energy can become completely wireless.
In healthcare settings, most sensors, monitors, alarms, lighting controls, some lights and low-power medical devices will never need batteries or wiring again. And battery-powered devices that are used only occasionally could switch from batteries to capacitors or simply be powered by a new wireless network.
Tesla’s dream has come true
Having wireless energy that can be transmitted over a distance has been on our long list of unmet needs since before Nikola Tesla, who was one of the first to try to bring wireless energy to market.
Once implemented, Ossia’s technology could significantly reduce the amount of toxic battery waste thrown into landfills, reduce the cost and inconvenience of replacing most batteries, make trackers much more reliable, and reduce wiring costs in homes, vehicles, and other complex types of passenger and truck vehicles. . . use.
This can help keep our robotic devices (like robot vacuums and lawn mowers) charged, as well as ensure that your pet tracker and phone or even computer are never undercharged. Even laptops can use much smaller batteries while still maintaining the same battery life. Imagine a digital assistant, security camera or nanny cam that you don’t have to connect to or change batteries.
This latter use suggests that we may need to take some precautions as this will also make it easier to move a wireless microphone or powered camera into any area served by the Ossia transmitter.
This week I saw the coming future of wireless energy on a large scale. Nikola Tesla would be proud.
Read more: Wyebot: An increasingly automated solution for wireless networks
